Femininity can come without sexualization. The 1979 science fiction and horror film “Alien” directed by Ridley Scott shows the whole world that this is true, while still being a successful movie that has nothing to do with femininity in the plot. The film follows Ripley(Sigourney Weaver) and her crew mates on the spaceship Nostromo as they accidentally encounter alien life. While some may think this concept fascinating and exciting, Scott shows just how dark, horrific, and dangerous it can be.

The Nostromo’s crew consists of 7 people on their voyage home to Earth. The ship wakes them up early because it picks up a distress beacon. The crew investigates, finds an alien egg, disobeys the protocol for quarantine, and ultimately let the alien on board as it attempts to kill and reproduce. The first look of the film’s poster immediately shows the suspenseful and scary intent the filmmakers had to draw in viewers. The poster depicts an alien egg hatching in almost complete darkness with the tagline “In space, no one can hear you scream”. 

Alien is primarily conventional. There are many different factors that play a role in this. Firstly, the film’s entire plot revolves around a strong protagonist surviving and prevailing against all odds. This is a common trend in movies even today, but especially was a formula used in mainstream movies in similar time period such as “Indiana Jones” and “Rocky”. Although “Rocky” is not necessary as life or death as “Alien”, it still has a similar formula of plot. Second, the artistic style of the film is unique in its appearance as well as behind the scenes. In an interview with the film’s director, Ridley Scott, it is explained that he had two different art directors for the movie: one for the human aspects such as the spaceship Nostromo and one for everything alien. The design for the Alien itself was also a huge aspect in it’s conventionality and success. Scott explains how “the creature remains to be one of the best of the best,” and “If [he] hadn’t got that, he wouldn’t have had such a movie”. When the art director wanted to make the alien even more detailed, he said it “is a high enough bar to reach just to get [the creature] right” without digital effects (The Elements Of Alien). This shows that the makers of the film designed it to be spectacular, and hoped that it would ultimately do well in cinemas. What they didn’t anticipate, however, is how important their work would be in telling this story to the world. 

Many critics have different ideas of the meaning behind the film. Some, such as Roger Ebert, tend to view the film in a straightforward way, saying that “Alien is a movie about things that can jump out of the dark and kill you” (Ebert: Great movie). While technically correct, this is a very shallow way of thinking about the film. In the article “Alien as an Abortion Parable,” John Cobbs argues that “Alien is about gestation and birth” and that it distinguishes it “from the kind of garden variety titillation of most thrillers” (Cobbs). These reviews excel in summarizing the movie, however they fail to discuss and situate the film in a more critical way.  On the surface, I somewhat agree with what these two critics have to say. However, on a deeper level, I believe that “Alien” has a more powerful meaning. 

The significance of “Alien” is that the strong protagonist in the story is a woman. On the surface, this isn’t out of the realm of possibility for a 1979 film, but ultimately what makes Ripley unique is her lack of extreme sexualization in the film. Historically speaking, women have had significantly fewer lead characters, stars, and icons to look up to. Although there were apparent female role models to idolize, it was rare to find someone who was not overly sexualized for their overall likeability. Even today there is still a lot of inconsistencies with this. For example, The classic and all time favorite saga “Star Wars” lacked a strong female lead until now. While obvious leads like Carrie Fisher and Natalie Portman were strong, they were not quite the main characters of the film. Also, Carrie Fisher was extremely sexualized as Princess Leia in her damsel in distress scene where she is essentially wearing a bikini while enslaved. With the release of the new trilogy, the female population got to experience the same feeling of wonder and greatness that the rest of us felt when Luke first turned on his lightsaber for the first time in “A New Hope”. This goes to show how other movies are changing, but also how ahead of the game “Alien” was. With all of this in mind, I personally appreciate the film not only for the story it tells, but for how important it was to countless women, young girls, and people in general.

The final scene of the film depicts Ripley partially naked, as she prepares to go back into cryosleep. While one may view this scene as needless sexualization, Scott’s point is to show Ripley’s vulnerability after the traumatic events that took place on the Nostromo. When she finally lets her guard down, we see her femininity underneath all her layers of emotional strength, and it goes to show how heroes don’t need to be masculine or give up any of their femininity to be strong. 

Poster – https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/41VReP3cJoL.jpg

Interview – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Rfi6S9enbs

Cobbs article – https://search.proquest.com/openview/603226498c54461fb220471aba67fa2e/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=5938

Ebert review – https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/great-movie-alien-1979

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